Some "unseen" descriptions … now seen! (2 Viewers)

[Björn Bergenholtz]

No. 23:
● renata … in the invalid "Apalis flavida renata" LAWSON 1968

No explanation. Conceivably an eponym, but also identical to a Latin word (feminine past participle of renascor = to be born again [also possibly past participle of reno = to swim back, but this verb rare, perhaps always intransitive, and I just can't imagine how this meaning could make any sense in a bird name]). For Code purposes, would probably have to be considered the Latin word (ie., would have to be treated as variable).

Also note the end of the OD, pp. 216-217, for "Apalis flavida renata" (that "Differs from A. f. florisuga" and "A.f.neglecta") … and the following sentence:

"Note: Clancey (1967) har already laid down the characters on this new race."

Which is a reference to this article (here), and in it; pp.97-102.

Maybe of some help interpreting the name? I get the feeling it´s not eponym, but a bird/subspecies re-appearing (a year later), being re-born, by Lawson ex Clancey (as suggested as a possibility) ? … but that´s me, knowing very little of Latin and Greek ... or how scientific names are constructed.
-

 

[l_raty]

No. 23:
● renata … in the invalid "Apalis flavida renata" LAWSON 1968

Maybe of some help interpreting the name? I get the feeling it´s not eponym, but a bird/subspecies re-appearing (a year later), being re-born, by Lawson ex Clancey (as suggested as a possibility) ?

I see a possible explanation there, indeed, but not exactly this one.
In 1962, Lawson had described Apalis flavida lucidigula [OD], with type locality in the eastern Transvaal lowveld. Clancey (1967) reviewed the subspecies limits in this species and invalidated Lawson's taxon, treating it as a synonym of A. f. neglecta, but simultaneously concluded that the neighbouring population of littoral Mozambique represented an unnamed valid race. Clancey then passed this on to Lawson, who described this littoral population as renata.
Thus it was the second time that Lawson "gave birth" to a subspecies of Apalis flavida, following the "death" of the first one.

 

[JustinJansen]

No 32: Johann Georg Wagler seems logical to me..... as Wagler is also quoted in the article.

 

[l_raty]

No. 23:
● renata … in the invalid "Apalis flavida renata" LAWSON 1968

Thus it was the second time that Lawson "gave birth" to a subspecies of Apalis flavida, following the "death" of the first one.

Mmh, no, on re-reading it, this makes no sense, as he did not accept Clancey's synonymization of his taxon. So, your reading must be the correct one, indeed.

 

[Taphrospilus]

No. 27:

Could...

sammetina

...be a colour? I ask as in here it is written:

...linea longitudinali nigra - sub sammetina cerlo situ consicua....

But same as Björn latin is not really my business. But in german the word samtfarben (soft, dark tinge) exists. Samt is in german velvet.

 

[James Jobling]

Thank you all for your contributions to this and similar threads. Rather than acknowledge you individually on line I have edited HBWAlive Key accordingly, and hope the entries meet with your approval.

 

[l_raty]

Samt is in german velvet.

sammetinus probably means "velvety" as James now suggests.
I tried searching Google Books for it (using various case endings): the word seemed most often used in association with niger (black)/nigredo (blackness), sometimes also with ruber/rubicundus (red), or fuscus (dark brown); all uses I saw were by authors who had obviously Germanic names.
See [this] for some more etymological strolling.

 

[mb1848]

Re: da Cruz, & Cruz:
Prepositions that can be used in Portuguese surnames are da, das, do, dos and de, such as in Luís de Sousa, Maria da Conceição, Osvaldo dos Santos, Luísa das Neves, etc. and mean "from" or "of". Da, dos, etc. are contractions of the preposition de and a definite article (o, as, etc.), meaning "from the" or "of the". The current convention in Portuguese is that they be written in lower case. Different from in Italian surnames, these conjunctives are usually not part of a composite name, i.e., "Sousa" is not different from "de Sousa", and both are ordered under 'S' in an alphabetical list. Therefore, one should not refer to Luís Inácio Lula da Silva as Mr. Da Silva but rather Mr. Silva. The conjunction "e" (and) is also common, e.g. "Maria Costa e Silva". Most commonly this would be a composite surname; in this case the person should be addressed as "Ms Costa e Silva", and not as Ms. Silva.
Wikipedia

 

[l_raty]

"SAMMET, Sammt, Samt" in Das Deutsches Wörterbuch.

How the word was used in Latin texts (fide Google Books; I added approximate translations--with sammetinus simply anglicized into "sammetine"; and, where possible, also a link to an image of what I think is described; I give no guarantee that my ability of finding the current valid name of staphylinid beetles described in Latin in 19th-C books is infallible, though ):

• Christoph Mayr
  • nigredinis sammetinis obscurioris = "of a darker sammetine blackness" (Aethiops mineralis AKA metacinnabarite)
  • coloris vegete rubri sammetini = "of a lively sammetine red colour" (red minium)
  • Sit coloris sammetini e fusco rubicundi = "It should be of a sammetine tone of dark red" (kermes mineral AKA oxysulfide of antimony)
• Alexander von Nordmann
  • Abdomen [...] linea longitudinali nigra-sub-sammetina certo situ conspicua = "Abdomen [...] with a longitudinal sammetinish-black line apparent in a certain place" (Platydracus phoenicurus)
• Johann Ludwig Christian Gravenhorst
  • Verucae plurimae supra puncto albo notatae sunt, quaedam autem puncto sammetino-fusco, nonnullae pluribus talium punctorum. = "Most warts are marked above with a white dot, some however with a sammetine-brown dot, a few with several such dots." (Green Toad)
  • Scutellum nigro-sammetinum = "Scutellum sammetine-black" (Abemus chloropterus)
  • Scutellum nigrum, medio sammetinum = "Scutellum black, in the middle sammetine" (Platydracus maculosus)
  • Scutellum triangulare, nigro-sammetinum = "Scutellum triangular, sammetine-black" (Spedophilus pubescens = S. testaceus)
  • Abdomen [...] punctis interdum majoribus nigro sammetinis duobus segmenti singularis = "Abdomen [...] occasionally with two larger sammetine-black dots on a single segment" (the same)
  • Thorax [...] niger, maculis sammetinis, viridi-flauis vel obscuro-oliuaceis, nebulosus. [...] Coleoptra [...] maculis sammetinis viridi-flauis vel obscuro-oliuaceis nebulosa [...] Abdomen [...] punctis 2 ante coleoptra testaceo-sammetinis = "Thorax [...] black, with sammetine spots, yellow-green or dark-olivaceous, clouded. [...] Elytra [...] clouded with sammetine yellow-green or dark-olivaceous spots. [...] Abdomen [...] with two sammetine-clay-coloured spots before the elytra" (Leistotrophus versicolor)
  • illis, quarum corpus vel sammetino-nebulosum vel villosum est = "those of which the body is either clouded sammetine, or hairy" (this seems to be a character that excludes from the discussed family)
• Friedrich Justin Bertuch
  • Alae & cauda colore nigro sammetino quem vocant = "Wings and tail of the colour that is called sammetine black" (Goldfinch)

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

sammetina

In Swedish the word sammet (known from the 1500's) is equivalent of the English word; velvet. Our sammet (ealier, in Old Swedish; samet) is claimed to derrive from the Middle Low German word sammet/sammit, which is said to origin in how velvet was made and the (Late) Greek ἑξάμιτον, from ἑξάμιτος, (meaning six threads) based on ἑξα- and μίτος.

Useful? I wouldn´t know … simply reading Svenska Akademiens Ordbok (the Swedish counterpart of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) or the Deutsches Wörterbuch (DWB).)

That´s all I have to say on this one, knowing from earlier on I´m usually in deep water when trying to figure out those ancient words.

Cheers!

PS. James also left a short comment regarding this name in the thread emiliae from de Dalmas (here), Post No. #6.

 

[l_raty]

Jones WJ. 2013. German Colour Terms: A study in their historical evolution from earliest times to the present : [samt-]

Perhaps "velvet-like" would be more correct than "velvety"? ("Velvety" suggests a velvet-like texture to me, rather than a velvet-like colour.)

 

[l_raty]

In Swedish the word sammet (known from the 1500's) is equivalent of the English word; velvet. Our sammet (ealier, in Old Swedish; samet) is claimed to derrive from the Middle Low German word sammet/sammit, which is said to origin in how velvet was made and the (Late) Greek ἑξάμιτον, from ἑξάμιτος, (meaning six threads) based on ἑξα- and μίτος.

Useful? I wouldn´t know … simply reading Svenska Akademiens Ordbok (the Swedish counterpart of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) or the Deutsches Wörterbuch (DWB).)

It's indeed quite similar to what the DWB says of it in German. Out of curiosity: would you use it as a colour modifier in today's Swedish? (Eg., as [here].)

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

Out of curiosity: would you use it as a colour modifier in today's Swedish?

Absolutely; mostly used in exactly that decription sammetssvart is a deep, deep (velvety) black (svart), a term used when you mean a true, real dark, "blacker than black" shade.

 

[kitefarrago]

In modern German I think Samt would always refer to the texture. Whether there's ever been a colour connotation I couldn't say. (My response in the other thread is a bit impoverished given the discussion here - I hadn't read that when I posted.)

Andrea

 

[James Jobling]

Thank you all for your input. My sister-in-law, a German-English technical translator, confirms that Sammet is the old German word for velvet, and refers to texture rather than colour (cf. silk). We tend to think of velvet as jet-black or deep-purple, but the examples given by Laurent show that in Mod. Latin it was applied to a variety of deep tints, normally with a colour qualifier. I shall retain the existing HBWAlive Key entry.

 

[nartreb]

In English, "velvet" is a fabric having a distinctively furry texture (on one side). It was historically made from silk yarns, which would be whitish if undyed, but in practice the yarns used for velvet are usually dyed some "rich", deep color: black, "royal" blue, "emerald" green, "ruby" red, "imperial" purple, etc. It's rather unusual to describe a color as "velvet"; in the examples in this thread the intent seems to be to convey "rich" or "deep" color (although one of the beetles is actually furry).

I would understand "velvet black" to mean absolute black, with no reflections. Velvet-like fabrics are commonly used in stagecraft and in the display of jewelry, because the texture eliminates specular reflections.

The manufacturing technique involves a "six-threaded" weave, which gives rise (via Greek "hexamitos") to the word "Sammet" in German. However, in English there is a distinction between the style of weave and presence of pile (furriness): "Samite" is a heavy silk fabric with a six-threaded weave [often with gold embroidery], but lacks the "supplementary warp loops" needed to produce the furry surface which defines velvet.

 

[mb1848]

"No. 28:
● Tiltria … as in? I haven´t found the "Tiltria" itself nor the Plate (tafel)"
Still cannot find this important book online but Tiltria is Reichenbach's genus for the River Warbler. From Gray's Hand-List of Genera and Species of Birds.

 

[l_raty]

No. 28:
● Tiltria

Still cannot find this important book online but Tiltria is Reichenbach's genus for the River Warbler. From Gray's Hand-List of Genera and Species of Birds.

Gray: [here].

Unfortunately, Reichenbach's plates are very rare (and I have never seen them online). One of them was reproduced by Gregory 2006 [pdf], who also described the work as: "a series of 100 uncoloured plates of superior draughtsmanship, depicting the heads, feet, wings and tails of some 1200 genera, many of which were new at that time." The names in this work are available without originally included nominal species and without description, through their simple association with an illustration. I think it unlikely that the work would help understanding the etymology of a name that Reichenbach introduced there.

The word doesn't seem to be Latin. If Greek: τίλτρια as such does not appear in dictionaries; however, the suffix -τρια can denote the female doer of an action; and τίλλω means "to pluck", "to pull out hair", "to tear one's hair in sorrow" or, metaphorically, "to vex" or "to annoy". So it might mean "she who plucks", "she who tears her hair in sorrow", or "she who annoys". How we can link that to the River Warbler, I don't know for sure...

(PS - with a "παρα-" prefix: παρατίλτρια = female slave who plucked the hairs from her mistress's body.)

 

[mb1848]

Thank You Laurent. Perhaps Reichenbach confused the River Warbler with a bird who uses hair in their nest. Willow Warbler do but River Warbler uses soft grass. Some North American birds vex and annoy live mammals for nesting materials (hair) like Bison, cattle, deer Moose.

 

[mb1848]

I found the Reichenbach black and white drawings. I hope people not from North America can see google books. I read in a catalog that a document was inserted in the front of this publication, Ornithologie méthodique ou exposé des genres des oiseaux de toutes... , which was Reichenbach's prodromus(?) or just the French title page? Google Book has it listed under this. The drawing does not add anything to the etymology. I would like to find the text but march madness is interfering.
Page xci of the google book, Reichenbach number LVIII:
http://books.google.com/books?id=2R4OAAAAQAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s .